The Huawei P20 and P20 Pro are, at last, official, as we had reported earlier. Both feature top-of-the-line hardware and advanced AI capabilities to justify their premium pricing.
But if there’s an important takeaway from Tuesday night’s debut event, it’s that the Chinese company said to be the third-largest smartphone vendor in the world is serious about mobile photography. And the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro have now been thrust at the forefront of this discussion, having earned the distinction of the best-performing camera phones on the market today from reference website DxOMark.
SEE ALSO: Official: Huawei P20 Pro with 3 rear cameras, Huawei P20 with 2
Specifically, the P20 was given a score of 102, while the Pro variant notched an even more impressive 109 points — which is 10 points more than what was awarded to the Samsung Galaxy S9+ for the same tests. The former top shooter is currently sitting in third place behind Huawei’s new flagships. Okay, well, what about the camera system on the back of the mighty Apple iPhone X? It has slipped to fifth position.
Top 5 smartphone cameras on DxoMark as of end-March 27, 2018
Having said that, it’s only expected that we will be curious to find out if the Huawei P20 and P20 Pro really do live up to their test scores. Fortunately for us, we were able to try out both P20 models — and we came away from the experience thoroughly impressed.
Here are some compressed but not enhanced, in any way or form, sample photos taken with the P20 Pro and P20, in that order.
Huawei P20 Pro
When talking about the Huawei P20 Pro, these are the two numbers you absolutely have to remember: three and forty. There are three cameras at the back of the phone, with sensors stacked vertically close to one another. The most notable of which is an ultra-high resolution camera boasting a 1/1.7-inch sensor with a 40-megapixel resolution. Whew.
According to Huawei, the sensor the P20 Pro uses is more than twice as large as that of the iPhone X, and a whopping 170 percent larger than the one inside the main camera of the Samsung Galaxy S9.
READ ALSO: Night shots: Samsung Galaxy S9+ vs Apple iPhone X
Combined with a 20-megapixel monochrome camera that captures rich detail, an 8-megapixel telephoto camera for 3x optical zoom, an improved laser auto-focus system with longer reach, a dedicated color sensor for accurate white balance, and 960 fps super slow-motion recording, you’re looking at the most advanced camera we’ve ever seen on a smartphone, period. No discussion necessary.
We’re not even done yet — there’s also the 24-megapixel camera with f/2.0 aperture on the front for shooting selfies. It’s about as sharp as they come in the industry.
Moving on, here are some of the first photos we took using the P20 Pro. We’ll take more, proper shots for our review.
Huawei P20
The admittedly less-fancy Huawei P20 has a similar camera setup as the one we’ve seen on the previous-gen model. Both have a 20-megapixel mono sensor that captures detail and a 12-megapixel RGB sensor for adding color information. Also present on these phones: 2x lossless zoom and phase-detection and laser auto-focus sensors for locking onto a subject with speed and accuracy.
But dig deeper, and you’ll find that the Huawei P10 and P20 have differences that make the latter more suited for taking pictures and video in low light. The camera sensors of the P20 have even lower aperture lenses of f/1.6 on the mono camera and f/1.8 on the color one.
SEE ALSO: This new Huawei phone is priced like 2 iPhone X units
Further, the P20 touts a bigger sensor that can pull in more light, more photographic information and generate higher-quality shots. Like the P20 Pro, it arrives with 24 megapixels on the front compared to the 8 megapixels of the P10.
And now for some pictures shot on the Huawei P20.
Huawei already announced its retail price for the P20 Pro and P20 — €899 (roughly P58,425 or $1,115) and €649 (P42,178 or $804), respectively. The first units of the P20 Pro will ship from April 6, whereas the regular P20 is now available in stores across Europe and in other markets.
Huawei P20 Pro specs
- 6.1-inch OLED display; 2,244 x 1,080 resolution (18.7:9)
- HiSilicon Kirin 970
- 6GB RAM128GB expandable storage
- Triple rear cameras (40MP color + 20MP monochrome + 8MP telephoto) with dual-tone LED flash
- 24-megapixel front camera
- 4,000mAh battery
- Fingerprint sensor
- Android 8.1 Oreo
Huawei P20 specs
- 5.8-inch LCD display; 2,244 x 1,080 resolution (18.7:9)
- HiSilicon Kirin 970
- 4GB RAM
- 128GB expandable storage
- Dual rear cameras (12MP color + 20MP monochrome) with dual-tone LED flash
- 24-megapixel front camera
- 3,400mAh battery
- Fingerprint sensor
- Android 8.1 Oreo
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